This Mortal Coil
by thelyreoforpheus
Summary: Draco and Hermione have an inexplicable connection, unknown to them both, until mutual discontent in their work and their love lives reveals their strange ability. Will they be able to accept the connection and the person on the other end? Or will their past get in the way?
1. Chapter the First

**A/N: Hello! This is my first fanfiction, but I solemnly swear to make it non-cringeworthy and as interesting as possible. I got the basis for the fic from a movie called In Your Eyes. If anyone is actually reading this, I appreciate your support.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or anything created by our precious queen. The plot alone is mine.**

He was finally flying, and the rush of adrenaline and pure _magic_ he felt running through his veins didn't disappoint. His mother, of course, still didn't approve of her baby flying at so young an age. But luckily, his father was eager to see his son on the Slytherin Quidditch team his first year of Hogwarts and thus supported him beginning his lessons so early, earlier than the other children and without his mother's knowledge, of course. His father wanted him to be the best at everything he did, or rather demanded it, and he wasn't inclined to disagree himself. Ever since he could talk, his father instilled in him the weight and prestige of his family name and the importance of being superior, so as to encourage praise and preclude ridicule. As he flew his training broom over the Manor's grounds, he caught a glimpse of the world beyond the walls, a world that he was forbidden to enter. His curiosity, however, got the better of him as he soared too high and lost control of his broom, falling as the ill-fated Icarus fell, a result of his hubris.

The young girl was jolted awake from her nap by a shooting pain in her right arm, accompanied by a massive headache. As she cried out in pain and surprise, her babysitter hastily dropped her book and ran into the room to search for the cause of her shout. The girl wasn't able to answer her inquiries, primarily because she was still into too much pain to form and express coherent thought but additionally because she had no idea herself what had happened. Amidst much confusion, she was brought to the nearest hospital, met by extremely concerned parents, but to no avail. The doctors found nothing to explain the pain she described. Her parents watched her very closely for the next few days, but when nothing similar happened again, the incident was soon forgotten.

§§§

A few years later, the girl was in primary school, a place where she never quite fit in. She was smart, quiet, and always just a little bit odd and therefore made few friends. At her age, it was typical for the boys to tease the girls, and this phenomenon was worsened for her given the ammunition they received in her bushy hair, buckteeth, and bookworm personality. Thus, in a quite typical course of events, she was currently being harassed on the playground as she attempted to read in peace. After the boy pulled her braid, she decided she had had enough and found a rock to throw at the culprit. This unfortunately prompted the boy to retaliate out of rage and shock that she would dare fight back by pushing her backwards, causing her to hit her head on the bench she had been previously occupying and knocking her temporarily unconscious.

He was visiting Diagon Alley with his mother, trying not to complain as they made their weekly trip to Madame Malkin's robe shop. As time stretched on, he couldn't help but voice his discontent and express his wish to visit Quality Quidditch Supplies instead. His mother shouted from the dressing room that he wasn't allowed to go off by himself and that, if he were good for the remainder of their time in the store, perhaps they would pop in after. His protests were cut short as he suddenly collapsed. His mother mistook his silence for acquiescence and continued trying on numerous robes. However, after his prolonged silence, she became concerned that he had actually run off without her permission and rushed out of the dressing room. She did not expect to find her son lying unconscious on the floor of the waiting area. When he finally came to, he couldn't remember anything occurring to cause him to pass out, and his mother attributed it to fatigue and hunger, treating him with a trip to Florean Fortesque's Ice Cream Parlour and a new broom.

§§§

Always keeping the memory of his glimpse beyond the walls in the back of his mind, the boy, now a teenager, home from Hogwarts for the summer holiday, took advantage of his father's presence at a meeting at the Ministry and flew his broom over the wall into the Muggle world. He still believed in pure-blood supremacy and the inferiority of Muggles to wizards, but he couldn't deny that he was curious about how the other side lived. Expecting to be met with hovels and Muggles living in filth, he was surprised to be faced with pleasant houses, not quite as grand as his manor, and beautiful, green fields. He was not quite of age and therefore couldn't use magic to disillusion himself, but, though he would never admit it, he enjoyed a nice day strolling through Muggle Wiltshire. He could almost forget the mounting pressure he had been feeling to live up to his name and please his father. He almost envied these Muggles their freedom and carefree lives, not weighed down by the turmoil growing in the wizarding world. Almost. As soon as he thought it, he reminded himself that he would never choose a life without magic and with happiness only in ignorance. If this self-reminder wasn't enough, this thought was soon thoroughly beat out of him upon returning home and finding his father waiting for him at the gate. That day he was the victim of his first Cruciatus Curse for sullying himself with the Muggle scum and disobeying and bringing shame to his father. That was the last time for many years that he thought about Muggles as anything but dirt under his shoes for their ignorance and for making him, once again, a disappointment to his father.

The girl was also relishing her summer holiday, currently with her two best friends from Hogwarts. She sat outside in the uncharacteristically beautiful weather enjoying her book as the two boys lazily threw around a Quaffle and occasionally took turns catching a Snitch she had charmed to stay within a certain radius of the two boys and which they used on lazy days such as this. Today she was amusing herself with a Muggle novel about wizards and magic, the kind she loved to read before she found out she was a witch a few years ago. She was just about to point out a particularly comical passage to the boys when she suddenly began feeling a strange tingling sensation, which was quickly followed by excruciating pain radiating through her body. The boys, overprotective and watchful as of late, quickly noticed her pain and frantically, yet unsuccessfully tried to determine the cause. The raven-haired boy took out his wand and began to check the surrounding bushes for a hidden culprit while the redhead ran inside to fetch his mother. Nothing they did could stop her pain, and just as they were about to Apparate her to St. Mungo's, she stopped writhing abruptly and, still sore from the pain, looked around in confusion. The boys sighed in relief as the mother of the red-haired boy performed a few spells to ensure there weren't any unwelcome strangers on the premises. With no apparent intruders discovered and word sent to the Ministry detailing the event, their summer proceeded without answers and with the two boys keeping an oppressively watchful eye on their friend.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews and constructive criticism are always appreciated. Next chapter coming soon, hopefully.**


	2. Chapter the Second

**A/N: Thanks to all those who reviewed and followed the story! I really appreciate your lovely comments, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well.**

Hermione Granger sat in her office, unaware and uncaring of the time, focusing only on the piles of paperwork before her. After completing her last year at Hogwarts as an eighth year student and achieving nine N.E.W.T.s — all Os of course—made all the easier by the lack of a certain evil wizard interrupting her studies, Hermione accepted a position with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, hoping to continue the work she started with S.P.E.W. Although she failed to receive support for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare while at Hogwarts, she never gave up her cause and still passionately believed that the treatment of house-elves, along with other magical creatures, was outrageous and inhumane.

She was, however, beginning to doubt the influence she was having through her Ministry job given the sluggishness of government work and the perplexing resistance of the house-elves themselves, who wanted nothing more than to work and who she upset constantly with talk of freedom. With the exception of dear Dobby, she had never met a house-elf who was willing even to consider being freed. Therefore, she had lately been focusing on improving and standardizing working conditions and ensuring they weren't being abused. She received much opposition to the regulations, primarily from the numerous pure-blood families who didn't appreciate being told how they were allowed to treat their slaves. Hogwarts, on the other hand, had no problem implementing the changes, happily agreeing to pay the elves and allow them time off, which the house-elves steadfastly refused to take, much to Hermione's dismay.

The wealthy families were harder to convince, and she was therefore forced to implement a program to mandate bi-weekly house calls to ensure the proper conditions were being enforced. Unfortunately for Hermione, she was the only one in her department who cared enough about the house-elves to visit these homes so frequently, and thus, the check-ups were left solely to her. This meant that every two weeks she was forced to make her rounds through the homes of the lucky pure-bloods who either weren't involved with Voldemort or had evaded Azkaban but who all, to some extent, still believed she was inferior due to her Muggle-born status, unwelcome as a Ministry employee, and quite the imposition for forcing them to treat their slaves like creatures with rights of their own. As much as she did not enjoy the paperwork she was buried in after each set of visits, she highly preferred it to the visits themselves, and they gave her some mindless solace from her life outside of work.

"Hermione!" yelled an exasperated Harry Potter as he rounded the corner into her office.

"We've been waiting for ages. You were supposed to meet us at the Leaky Cauldron for drinks two hours ago!"

Hermione looked up from her work, her best sheepish expression on her face, and prepared to launch into her rehearsed apology speech.

"No, 'Mione. You can't keep avoiding your problems, _your friends_ , by hiding in your office and working all night. I don't care that you didn't meet us for drinks. I care that you think avoiding us is the only solution. You know you can come to us with anything, don't you?"

"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry. I just think I need some time to sort everything out."

Harry sighed. "If you think that will help. You know we'll support you, however you need to get through this."

Hermione stood up and rounded her desk to give Harry an appreciative hug.

The Boy Who Lived smiled begrudgingly. "Take all the time you need. But promise me you won't spend it cooped up in this office. The house-elves, and their masters, will be glad to be rid of you for a while," he said, flashing her an impish grin.

§§§

Hermione finished packing her suitcase and looked around her nearly empty flat, sighing as she considered the last few months. After two quite lovely years of dating, Ron and Hermione had realized something they had simply ignored all along—they wanted very different things. Ron, having grown up in a large family and developed a renewed appreciation for life during the war, was eager to begin a family with Hermione by his side. Hermione, on the other hand, had only just begun her work for house-elves and was not ready for either children or marriage, wishing instead to focus on her career and helping oppressed and mistreated creatures. Thus, two months ago, the couple had split up, and they were currently on dubious terms. She admittedly had not entirely moved on from Ron just because she wasn't ready for a family, so she had been avoiding him as much as possible. Unfortunately, this meant isolating herself from the Weasleys, who were so much like a family to her, in addition to Harry and Ginny, who were actively plotting to reunite the couple.

The only contact she had with Ron in the last few weeks was on the night he came to retrieve the box of his shrunken belongings that she had found strewn about her flat in Diagon Alley, which Ron had all but moved himself into over the past year due to his constant frustrations with life at the Burrow. As part of their campaign to get the two at least back on speaking terms, Harry and Ginny had tried to invite them both discreetly to various outings. _Well, not discreetly enough,_ thought Hermione wryly. She had seen right through their frankly pathetic evasions to her inquiries regarding the attendance of a certain redhead and had therefore found excuses to avoid them all. Hermione had attempted to avoid the latest meeting for drinks in quite productive fashion by hiding in her office. The night Harry confronted her she had made the decision to take some much needed vacation time to distance herself from the situation, determine how best to handle her relationship with Ron, and hopefully return her life to normal. As much as she was delighted in the piles of work she was getting done, she knew hiding and avoiding everyone she cared about was unsustainable and was growing increasingly lonesome.

§§§

Hermione double-checked that her international portkey was still lined up for that afternoon and continued packing up her belongings. Regardless of her decision, she was determined to leave her current flat and had nearly finished moving whatever belongings she wasn't bringing on her trip into a few boxes that Harry and Ginny had kindly agreed to keep. The small flat simply held too many memories, and she wanted a fresh start when she returned.

As she magically sealed the last box, she grew irritated that the only thing standing in the way of her holiday was Draco Malfoy. Or, rather, her final trip to his manor to inspect his house-elves. To his credit, Draco hadn't called her any nasty names or whined _too_ much upon the implementation of the new Ministry policy regarding house-elves, which he had agreed to on his family's behalf. After all, what were a few Galleons spent on the house-elves if it helped rebuild the Malfoy name? Outside of these professional visits, Hermione had only seen Draco at a few charity dinners, always accompanied either by his mother or the gorgeous Astoria Greengrass. He had always seemed civil enough at these events and had, on occasion, gone so far as to make a small, but lighthearted quip about her obsession with house-elves. Hermione had seen enough to know that he hadn't taken well to his involvement with Voldemort and to determine that, though he had a greatly troubled childhood and had behaved dreadfully at Hogwarts, he was by no means evil. For Hermione, that assessment alone was enough to warrant civility when they occasioned to cross paths.

She dropped off her boxes to the Potters, and leaving them with wishes of an enjoyable and enlightening trip and many hugs, Hermione Apparated to Malfoy Manor.

§§§

A nervous-looking house elf met Hermione at the main gate of Malfoy Manor.

"Hello, Mipsy. How have the Malfoys been treating you?"

"The Malfoys are good masters to Mipsy, Miss Hermione. Mipsy loves working here," spoke Mipsy wearily, looking at Hermione as though she might throw a knitted hat at her at any moment.

"That's great to hear. You've been getting your proper wages?" asked Hermione pleasantly.

"Yes, of course, Miss," she answered hastily. "Young Master Draco told Mipsy to show Miss to his study when Miss arrived."

"Lead the way then, Mipsy." Hermione sighed as she mentally prepared herself for their meeting. _Our last meeting for a while,_ thought Hermione, growing suddenly cheerful.

Mipsy led Hermione to Draco's study, shooting her glances over her bony shoulders as they walked, as if worried Hermione was plotting her imminent freedom.

"Master Draco, may Mipsy present Miss Hermione Granger?"

"Ah, yes. Nice to see you were able to calm that bird's nest of yours today. What's the occasion, Granger? Trying to impress me?" Draco smirked.

Hermione did her best not to react. She was here on business after all, and she prided herself on remaining professional. "Ferret," she began. Well, mostly professional. "I have important business to attend to in a short time, so let's just get this over with as quickly as possible, shall we? Standard procedure. I'll need records of the paid wages of your house-elves, access to their living quarters to ensure proper living conditions, and your signature on the usual form confirming that you are not abusing or punishing your elves in any way, which shall of course be verified magically."

"Yes, Granger. I've heard it a thousand times," huffed Malfoy impatiently.

Hermione swept past him on her way to elves' quarters, a route she knew by heart by now.

"What's your rush, Granger? Hot date tonight?" Malfoy questioned, teasingly, as he ran after her. As teasingly as the ferret could manage, anyway.

"That's none of your business, Malfoy. But no, as a matter of fact, I'm going out of the country for a while. Your check-ups will be completed by McIntosh in my absence."

"McIntosh?" Malfoy asked incredulously. "Our agreement was made with you, Granger. I will not be allowing incompetent Ministry employees access to the Manor."

"Oh, yes, you most certainly will, Malfoy. That is, if you don't want your house-elves seized and relocated to Hogwarts," Hermione reminded him, a little too eagerly. She was, in fact, delighted in the great displeasure of both McIntosh, who truly was an incompetent wizard, and, of course, Malfoy.

Draco looked as though he might protest, but instead merely glared at Hermione, his expression betraying his annoyance. "Very well. Be sure to warn him that his usual idiocy will not be tolerated in my home, and I will not hesitate to inform your superiors should he step out of line." He looked slightly cheerier at the thought.

She had chosen Philip McIntosh as her replacement during her time off for this very reason. During the drafting of her regulations, their office was bombarded by the families to be affected, all insisting on voicing their very…passionate opinions. One of these visitors had been Draco Malfoy, determined not to allow the Ministry to dictate how he was to run his home. Each visit had ended in a quarrel between the two wizards, usually because Philip insulted the Malfoy family or suggested that Death Eaters, even reformed ones, had no say in the workings of the Ministry. Of course that was the exact wrong way to handle Draco Malfoy, and the quarrels no doubt would have turned into duels had Hermione not intervened each time. However, their feud provided her with an entertaining replacement.

By the end of their conversation, the pair had completed the tour of the house-elves' quarters, and Hermione determined that the conditions remained satisfactory. Draco signed the form without a fuss, still looking slightly put out as he handed her his Gringotts records. Hermione almost felt bad, but then she remembered his earlier joke about her hair and decided she was quite content with her decision.

Draco walked her back to the front gate where she thanked him for his continued cooperation before Apparating back to her flat.

Once home, she checked her watch and, noticing that she still had an hour until her portkey would be activated, grabbed her shrunken suitcase and walked to the park beside her building to read.

 **A/N: Thanks again for reading! I know nothing terribly exciting happened in this chapter, but I hope it gave you some good background before the story really gets going. I'll do my best to finish the next chapter more quickly than this one.**


	3. Chapter the Third

**A/N: Words cannot express how terribly sorry I am about how long this took. I've had this chapter written for an embarrassingly long amount of time, but I was never quite satisfied and kept putting off publishing it. I can try to excuse it by citing moving and school and moving overseas and research and more school, but I feel terrible for making you wait this long regardless. Hopefully the chapter will somewhat make up for the wait. Thanks again for all of your reviews and follows! I shall make no promises regarding the publishing of my next chapter, since I clearly didn't keep them last time.**

Hermione began her daily walk along the picturesque canal to her favorite café in the town center. Every morning she took a book down to the café and relaxed there most of the morning, reading and watching the small boats drift down the canal. She had luckily been able to secure some consulting work for the French Ministry for the duration of her stay, in order to justify to herself the extensive break she planned to take from England. Thus, she spent her afternoons in a makeshift office in the magically hidden Ministry building to complete her work on magical creature rights and regulations. Although she didn't need the extra money to sustain her time off, she knew she would rapidly get restless without work to do.

This particular afternoon, as she was walking home from her temporary office, she was suddenly overtaken by the startling appearance of someone else's flat in her vision, in the place of the shop window into which she had been gazing. As her vision seemed to alternate between her own surroundings and the foreign flat, she managed to stumble over to the nearest bench and attempted to shut her mind against the invading reality.

A passing gentleman stopped to ask after her wellbeing, but before she could assure him that she was fine, she heard a strange voice ask, "Mate, when did you learn French?"

Hermione looked around for the source of the voice but was unable to find anyone in the vicinity paying them the least bit of attention.

"Hello? Who's there?" she asked, alarmed.

Before she received a response, the French man's anxious queries startled her out of her trance, and she shook her head as though to clear it.

"I'm very sorry. I thought I heard someone, but I must have been mistaken. Thank you for stopping to help me, but I'm quite well now." She managed a crude smile, hoping it was believable enough to convince him she was fine.

The man left with a few worried glances in her direction, and she didn't hear the strange voice any longer.

Hermione, satisfied for the time that her mind had played a trick on her, perhaps due to her recent lack of human contact, wearily hurried back to her flat. Just as she put her key in the door, she had another startling vision, this time of a hand, not her own, grasping a wand.

"What is happening to me?" she cried. Intent on getting into her flat and doing some research on potential explanations for these visions, Hermione fumbled with her key and eventually managed to enter the apartment, not at all prepared for the voice she heard next.

"What the bloody hell is going on?"

Hermione swiftly pulled out her own wand, which she was only carrying for emergencies while she was staying in Muggle France, and began slowly checking her flat for intruders. Unsettled by the apparent lack of human presence suggested by her unsuccessful _Homenum Revelio_ , Hermione demanded, "Who's there? And where are you?" as she walked through her flat, checking under furniture and behind curtains, just to be sure.

"I'm in my study, where are you?" answered the voice, a man's she noted.

"Your study? Then why can I hear you?"

"Don't ask me. I'm just as confused as you are."

"Are you…real, then?"

"Am I real? What kind of question is that? Of course I'm bloody real!"

"Then why are you in my head? Better yet, how?"

Hermione, her mind racing, searching frantically for an explanation, remembered the image of the hand grasping the wand. She got immediately defensive.

"You're a wizard! Are you using some sort of Legilimency on me?"

Although her "constant vigilance" had been softened some by the quieter years after the war, once the threat of dark wizards and their loyal followers loomed fainter, it was easy for Hermione to slip back into her old ways, and she was now on high alert. The most similar situation she could think of was the connection between Harry and Voldemort, which was an unsettling thought. Her only consolation was the fact that she had never been _Avada_ 'd, and she was pretty positive her body did not contain a portion of someone else's soul. It still felt suspiciously like Dark Magic, and she resolved to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.

"As skilled a Legilimens as I am, I'm not using it on you. I don't know who you are, or even where you are, and I don't possess the skill of invading people's minds unintentionally."

Hermione could almost hear an eye roll in his voice. She was mildly satisfied with his answer based on her own knowledge of Legilimency but still believed something strange was happening between them, perhaps without the intention of either. She was not comforted by the possibility.

She briefly entertained the thought that the remaining Death Eaters could be involved but decided she sounded suspiciously like Harry in their sixth year. The war was over, and there was hardly much for Death Eaters to gain by creating this strange connection. She wasn't stupid, however, and would remain open to the possibility, but figured there would be a less ominous explanation.

"I'll believe you, for now. I can hear that you're English. So you're in England, then?"

"Yes, and you?

"On holiday. In France."

"Strange time of year for a holiday."

"And yet here I am."

"Fair enough. Any reason you can think of that explains why we can talk to each other from different countries?"

"None so far. I've started some preliminary research into the possibilities. Any ideas on your side?"

Draco sat in his study, staring into the fireplace, wondering how his father fit into this.

§§§

Hermione leaned back in her chair, rubbing her hands over her face and stretching her legs out in front of her. She had been in the small room she referred to as her library for the better part of a week, desperately searching for any explanation for her current predicament. Thus far, her research had yielded nothing, but she was determined to exhaust all of her own resources before attempting to obtain access to the French Ministry's. She wasn't sure her part time consulting work quite warranted access to their libraries and archives.

For the past few hours, she hadn't been concentrating very well on her work, as something had been bothering her that she couldn't get out of her head. Over the last week, she and the mystery man had held many conversations, and every time he spoke she felt as though she recognized his voice. However, their connection seemed to be just weak enough that she could never seem to hear his voice clearly, which led to many hours on her part spent agonizing over determining just where she had heard his voice. She knew it would be simpler to just ask his identity, but she was worried about the questions revealing her identity to him would bring. There had been somewhat of an unspoken agreement between the two that their identities were to remain hidden for the time being, and she was quite enjoying the freedom of anonymity. Unfortunately for her, that still didn't stop her ever-insatiable curiosity from constantly speculating at his identity.

Just as Hermione walked into the kitchen to rummage through her rather limited supply of food, she felt the newly familiar feeling which always came just before the connection "turned on." She supposed it was nice to have some warning. Over the last week, they had been working on gaining better control over the connection so that they were only communicating or projecting their surroundings intentionally. Hermione had also been anxious to determine whether the connection only allowed them to have conversations out loud or if they also had an internal connection that would allow them to share thoughts. She definitely didn't want him to be able to hear her thoughts without her knowledge.

"Oh, you're going to try cooking again? I couldn't have picked a better time," he said, smirking. Yes, she was able to hear his smirks now.

"I'll have you know that I'm perfectly capable of cooking. That chicken was defective."

"I know I don't cook for myself, but I'm pretty sure there aren't such things as faulty chickens."

Sometimes she liked their banter. Other times she wanted to find him and strangle him. This was quickly becoming one of the latter. Her cooking skills, or lack thereof, were still a sore subject for her, remnants of her relationship with Ron and his constant comparisons of her attempts at cooking with his mother's feasts. The idea that he could learn to cook if he didn't like her food had been preposterous to him and led to quite a few fights between them, especially toward the end.

"Did you have a reason for intruding, or was it expressly to insult my cooking?"

"Well, it certainly couldn't have been for your company, could it? Miserable witch, you are."

"And you are absolutely infuriating! Why don't you try to cook something for once in your life and then perhaps you can lecture me."

"Me? Cook? That's what house elves are for. Maybe you should get yourself one."

Draco didn't quite know the extent of it, but he did know that this particular witch was greatly vexed by any mention of house elves. She would become immediately enraged and always delivered an impassioned speech on the atrocity of enslaving innocent creatures. So naturally, it was his new favorite hobby to bring them up.

"I would never _own_ another creature! It's outrageous and completely unfair. They deserve their own lives, not to be constantly ordered about and mistreated by the likes of you."

§§§

The next day found the pair testing the limits of their connection, with only a minimal amount of shouting. Minimal for them, anyway.

"And there it is again. Your sodding tea."

"It's not like you're doing any better! How many times are you going to show me that bloody book? You're not concentrating. If you would just concentrate, I'm sure we could…"

"Not concentrating! I suppose I've just been sitting over here wasting my time reading book after bloody book trying to figure out why I've got _you_ in my head all the time."

"Yes, well, having you in my head hasn't been a walk in the park either, you prat."

She wanted to scream in frustration. They had spent the entire morning thus far attempting to project their thoughts, instead of their surroundings, but to no avail. There were few things Hermione Granger couldn't master, and she was not content letting this be one of them. The sooner they determined whether they could project thoughts, the sooner they could control it. Of course, there was no guarantee their connection extended that far, but Hermione had a feeling she had heard a few things her mystery man would never have said out loud. For example, she very much doubted he would intentionally admit to her how cute he found her hands when she spoke with them or the thoughts he had on her legs the time he caught her having a bubble bath. The recollection of that incident still made her blush.

"Look, if we could just hold off arguing for one second, I think we could figure this out. We learned how to control our physical projections, after all."

"Fine. Let's practice your precious yoda, or whatever you call that crap, and try again."

Hermione giggled a bit before correcting him, which he didn't take very kindly.

Bloody witch. She's not the one getting strange looks from the damned house elves for talking to someone who isn't there.

"Excuse me, but I get plenty of strange looks thanks to our little _gift_. At least it's just your house elves and not your coworkers who now think of you as the crazy English girl with an imaginary friend."

"What did you just say?"

"I said, at least it's just your house elves—"

"Yes, but I never said anything about my house elves."

"I'm quite sure you did. Complaining because the creatures you enslave to do your bidding give you strange looks when you talk to yourself."

"You misunderstand. I didn't say anything about my house elves _out loud_."

 **A/N: Thanks again for reading! And please, please forgive me. I shall do my best to have the next chapter out before another year has passed..**


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